


Missing Out, Missing You

by BabelFishing



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Nostalgia, One Shot, Reconciliation, Regret, Talking, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27577441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabelFishing/pseuds/BabelFishing
Summary: One evening, aboard Horde Prime’s ship, two former enemies converse about their younger years and what could have been, if not for the war.OrCatra and Glimmer share a small moment of reconciliation, in the midst of captivity and galactic uncertainty.
Relationships: Catra & Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	Missing Out, Missing You

**Author's Note:**

> These two spent a decent amount of time together aboard Horde Prime’s ship before Adora arrived. So, they must have bonded more than just twice, right? Catra’s not one to have her heart changed on a dime, either. Maybe it was more incremental, before she decided to do that one good thing in her life.

“What was it like, growing up with Adora?”

With no one else sharing her sterile cell aboard the Velvet Glove, Glimmer appeared at first to be speaking to herself. But just on the other side of the cell’s acrid green barrier, Catra rested with her back against the opaque force field. Her ears perked up at the question while her mind tried to recall those halcyon days, a full eternity ago.

“Let’s just say that there’s no reason for you to envy growing up in the Horde.”

Pouting slightly, Glimmer tried to press the question.

“Well, yeah, Adora told me about how they treated you both. You especially, though…it sounds like you always got the short end of the stick.”

Scowling, Catra tried to bite her tongue.

“Oh, is that how she put it? I guess it was hard for her to tell what was really going on when she was busy playing Shadow Weaver’s favorite. She couldn’t do anything wrong, after all, at least nothing that I wouldn’t get punished for in her place.”

Sensing that she’d struck a nerve, Glimmer tried to redirect the conversation. More than anything, she didn’t want Catra to storm off in a huff, as she had the last time they’d talked. Having someone else to talk to – even Catra – felt like a blessing now, after being away from all of her friends, and all of Etheria, for what felt like weeks.

“I just meant…what was it like for you two? It couldn’t have been all bad, right?”

“It wasn’t all bad, no,” Catra admitted with a sigh. “Most of it was… but Adora made some of that better, I guess.”

Not wanting to interrupt her found friend, Glimmer remained silent while Catra gathered her thoughts.

“Like this one time,” Catra started in while gesturing out towards the nearby vacant corridor, “when we were out on a scouting mission, our Force Captain made me carry a bunch of extra weight in my pack because I talked back to him. I ended up rolling my ankle pretty bad, but I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want to get punished again…”

“Adora noticed, though. She forced me to switch packs with her when we stopped for a water break, and she carried that heavy pack for the rest of the day. I didn’t really thank her for doing that, but that was just the kind of thing she was always doing – helping me when there was nothing but extra work in it for her. She was playing the hero, even back then, I guess.”

“I know, right?” Glimmer chuckled while looking across the room and out her meager slit of a window. “From the way she usually acts, you’d think she was born to be the paragon of valor. Like at Thaymor, she defended Bow and I out of nowhere. We had literally captured her and tied her up a few hours earlier and there she was, crushing bots and slicing up Horde tanks without a second thought. I don’t know what we would have done without her…”

“We would have captured Thaymor, that’s what would have happened,” Catra shot back sarcastically. “Who knows? We might have captured Bright Moon’s princess, too.”

Glimmer could tell that her opposite was trying to taunt her, and remind her that, despite the current circumstances, they had been enemies for years now. But the Queen couldn’t bring herself to reply in anger. Her animus toward Catra, the former Horde officer, had begun melting away as she grew to know Catra, the desperate, war-weary victim of circumstance.

Catra hadn’t been trying to let on much about herself, of course. But even so, her better angels still managed to peak through from time to time. That was particularly true when they talked about Adora, who clearly still had a soft spot in the woman’s battle-scarred heart.

Catra kept that side of herself well-guarded, though, especially against those who would use it against her. When Horde Prime or his clones were around, Catra spoke as if she’d turn over her former friend to the galactic colonizer in a heartbeat. But when the scene fell silent, and only Glimmer was around to listen, it was clear that Catra regretted how her selfish actions had coalesced and torn them apart.

After a few moments of silence between the pair, Catra returned to her earlier train of thought.

“There was another time, right after we were old enough to receive field assignments, that Adora was picked to be a squad leader. She got such a big head about it. I seriously thought she’d never shut up about it until they made her a Force Captain.”

“And did she?” Glimmer inquired, laughing a bit at their mutual friend’s recognizable ego.

“Yeah, she probably would have. But when they assigned her as a squad leader, they assigned me to an entirely different unit. Shadow Weaver never said why, but I’d bet she did it so that Adora wouldn’t be ‘distracted’ or whatever. Too bad Adora had her outsmarted that time. To her credit, she turned down the promotion – right to Shadow Weaver’s face, too. She said she didn’t want to be a leader yet, not until I could be promoted with her…”

Catra trailed off, realizing the irony in her friend’s past actions. Here she was now, the former second-in-command to all of the Etherian Horde, and she didn’t have Adora there to appreciate how far she’d come. In a sense, though, they’d both moved up in the world, just in wildly different directions.

“I don’t know where she got the courage to say stuff like that. I think she was as afraid of Shadow Weaver as I was…but that never seemed to stop her, at least not when it came to…”

Deep in her throat, Catra felt the end of her thought catch and cut in. Though she tried to coax it out, she wasn’t ready to admit aloud that she’d ever needed anyone to protect her – let alone Adora. Through it all – through Shadow Weaver’s abuse, through the Horde’s rough conditioning, and through the ravages of the war’s late stages - Catra had held fast to the belief that she could live to fight another day, so long as she relied on herself alone when it came to protection.

But now, Catra was beginning to feel that her prime directive was wearing thin, to the point that she felt aimless in this massive ship’s winding corridors. Day in and day out, a voice in the back of her head reminded her of her predicament, cornered as she was in the vast expanse of space. Even talking to Glimmer, her former adversary, was making the pit in her stomach grow wider, leaving her to wonder in the space between steady thoughts if she had chosen her side wisely.

“To be honest, I’m a little jealous.”

Glimmer scratched nervously at her neck, realizing that what she was suggesting sounded far afield.

“I had a lot of friends growing up, being the only child of the Queen and all. But they mostly just wanted to hang out with me for my status. Bow wasn’t like that, of course, but I wouldn’t have even met him if his dads hadn’t been research partners with Bright Moon’s royal library. For as kind and supportive as he’s been to me through the years, I still wish I’d met Adora sooner. I just feel like we missed out on a lot, not growing up together.”

This time it was Catra’s turn to laugh, which shook her out of her momentary descent into despair.

“What do you have to be jealous of, Sparkles? You grew up in a literal castle, in the lap of luxury. You had everything you could have wanted and more, including, you know, real parents. You even got to be in charge of a goody-two-shoes effort to protect all of the little peasants on Etheria.”

“Meanwhile, most of my ‘good’ memories with Adora only stand out because of the Horde’s neglect for anything resembling happiness. Both of us had to fight hard for those brief moments where we could both smile. So, don’t go thinking that it’s anything that you’d want a piece of.”

Glimmer considered her companion’s admonition, especially in light of their present predicament. Wishing for something as distant and nostalgic as the past felt like an easy escape from this cell, that was for sure. But even so, Glimmer couldn’t shake her desire to have had more time with Adora, especially before her elevation to the throne.

“I’m still jealous, though,” Glimmer confessed, now trying to respond in kind to Catra’s candor. “Most of my friends growing up just liked me for my title as princess. I had some social status that they wanted, but they ignored me in the process. I know it’s hard to believe, but other than Bow, I was pretty lonely growing up. I know you didn’t have a bunch of friends in the Horde…”

“Any friends, Sparkles. I didn’t have any friends in the Horde.”

“…but you had Adora. She’s better than a hundred friends combined. I’ve never known someone so loyal, so self-sacrificing – even to someone who had tied her up and called her the enemy a few hours prior. She can be a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when she thinks she’s right about something.”

“But still, she’s an amazing friend and you’re lucky to have known her for so long. I’m not saying that I’d trade what I had growing up just for her, but…I really do wonder what my life would be like now, if I’d known her even a year or two longer. All of our lives might have been different then, you know?”

As Glimmer gestured out into her near-empty cell, Catra shook her head and scowled again.

“Well, I don’t really have to worry about her being my ‘amazing friend’ anymore. She probably hates me after I, you know, opened a portal that almost consumed all of reality.”

Just the mention of the portal incident caused a sharp flame of anger to light behind Glimmer’s eyes. But before she could act on its heat, she closed her eyes and let out a metered breath. Though the pain and confusion of that whole calamity still percolated through her waking thoughts, Glimmer knew deep down that unloading her fury now would only lead to more pain.

After all, Catra clearly felt some regret over pulling the lever, if only because it created a new rift between herself and Adora. If that remorse was genuine, Glimmer thought, then maybe Catra really was a different person now.

Maybe she had the capacity to do something good, too, if she had the chance.

As her thoughts turned from enmity to charity, Glimmer turned herself around and sat cross-legged, her gaze directed toward her opaque cell door, and through it, her former enemy.

“I don’t think she hates you. I mean, she has every reason to hate me after what I said to her the last time we spoke. But I think she’s willing to forgive you. She told me as much during one of our sleepovers. Adora’s still holding out hope for you, after all of this time. If we ever find a way out of here, you should remember that.”

For a moment, Catra tried to take her captive’s words to heart. But before they could settle in, her reactive spirit took over. This pity was more than she could handle, and her instincts wanted to make it clear that it wasn’t appreciated.

“She doesn’t need to worry about me anymore. I can take care of myself. I’ve always been able to. She just wants to live her insufferable fantasy of always being the hero.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Glimmer conceded. “But if I’ve learned anything about Adora in the short time I’ve known her, it’s that she never gives up – on her goals or on her friends.”

After allowing the hopeful sentiment to linger in the air for a bit, Glimmer spoke up again.

“And do you know what else?”

“What?”

“I kind of wish we all could have been friends. From what Adora’s told me, you two got into all kinds of mischief when you were younger. I wish I could have been there for that, one way or another. If this war had never happened, maybe we would have had the chance.”

This time around, Catra didn’t feel her defensive instincts kicking in. Deep down, she could feel that Glimmer was speaking from the heart – not as a prisoner trying to get in good with her captor, but as a soldier speaking her truth before an unknown fate. Much to her own surprise, Catra felt a similarly wistful spirit bubbling up in her core, longing for a past that had never occurred.

“That’s a sweet thought, Sparkles,” Catra replied, the edge now gone from her tone. “But don’t go around telling people we’re friends now, either. These clones don’t have a great sense of humor.”

Glimmer grinned, sensing now that she wasn’t entirely alone on this ship after all.

“You got it, Horde Scum.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this missing scene one shot!
> 
> Tumblr - believedinthegreenlight
> 
> Tumblr (She-Ra sideblog) - makethemgold


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